Why St. Louis Ribs Are So Healthy: Vitamin K2 Menaquinones

Introduction

Unless you are involved in the culinary arts or the meat industry, you probably haven’t given much thought to the term, “St. Louis Style Pork Ribs”. Is this dish some kind of specially spiced, spare rib recipe from St. Louis, MO? Did it originate in a colorful Saint Louis, a 20th century restaurant, or maybe it was first served at a St. Louis Cardinal baseball game in the 1930s? All three hypotheses seem to be plausible (1).

St. Louis Style Pork Ribs, first and foremost, represent a specific butchery cut of pork ribs recognized by the USDA (1). Figures 1 and 2 below demonstrate exactly how “St. Louis Style Pork Ribs” are butchered from hogs.

Figures 1 and 2. Butchery location of Saint Louis Style Pork Spare Ribs.

Because of their anatomical location slightly above pork bellies (the pork cut used for bacon manufacture), St. Louis Style Pork Spareribs represent the highest fat (combined muscle, bone, and fat) cut in the entire pig.

OK, so what is the big deal about St. Louis Style Pork Spareribs?

The official USDA position to prevent cardiovascular disease (CVD) is to eat less, not more saturated fat from fatty meats such as St. Louis Pork Spareribs.

But I believe there is some nutritional factor present in unadulterated, fatty pork meat, such as found in St. Louis Style Pork Spareribs that may not only prevent CVD, but may also prevent osteoporosis and be therapeutic for a wide variety of diseases which afflict the Western world.

Dietary Menaquinones (Vitamin K2)

St. Louis Style Pork Ribs have recently (2016) been discovered to be one of the richest dietary sources of menaquinones (2), also collectively known as vitamin K2. Ingestion of menaquinones may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) (3-10), osteoporosis (11-16), multiple sclerosis, and other autoimmune diseases (17-23) and cancer (24). The optimal intake of the ten dietary menaquinones (MK-4, MK-5, MK-6, MK-7, MK-8, MK-9, MK-10, MK-11, MK-12, and MK-13) is unknown (2, 25-27). Nevertheless, it is suspected that our current Western diet is low or deficient in total menaquinones (MK-4 to MK-13) [2, 25-27].

If you relish fatty cuts of pork (back ribs, spare ribs and St. Louis Style ribs), you are in luck, as the fattier the pork cuts, the more menaquinones they contain (2), which is a good thing for your bones (11-16), your heart (3-10) your immune system (17-23), and cancer prevention (24).

Table 1 demonstrates the concentrations of the ten menaquinones (MK-4 to MK-13) in both processed pork products (Kielbasa, Pork sausage, and Canadian bacon) and in fresh cuts of pork meat.

Table 1. The menaquinone content (μg/100 g) of processed and fresh pork meats (2), ND = not detected.

Processed pork meats showed a strong correlation (r = 0.94) between the total fat content of the various cuts and vitamin K content. This robust relationship is not surprising as vitamin K is a fat-soluble vitamin, and its hydrophobic (water avoiding) nature (30) explains why it is found in lower concentrations in leaner cuts of pork, which contain more water and less fat.

If you want to increase your dietary intake of menaquinones, you should eat fattier cuts of pork.

How about processed pork? Should you consider eating huge quantities of kielbasa, pork sausage links, and patties, and Canadian bacon to obtain your menaquinones? Probably not a good idea because all processed meats are highly salted.

Table 2 below demonstrates the sodium (Na+) and potassium (K+) contents of the processed pork meats from the study (2) and contrasts them to the fresh pork meats also tested in this study (2).

Despite being concentrated sources of menaquinones (Table 1), processed pork meat is also a concentrated source of Na+ with a 100 g serving to average 1152 mg of Na+ and also exhibiting an unhealthy K+/Na+ ratio of 0.31. For adults, the daily recommended intake of Na+ is 2,300 mg and for hypertensives, 1,500 mg or less (28). The Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommends a K+/Na+ ratio of 2.04, whereas contemporary Paleo diets maintain K+/Na+ ratios between 5.0 to 10.0 or higher (28, 29). Hence, for our stone-age ancestors, dietary K+/Na+ ratios below 1.0 (as present in processed pork meat) would have been impossible (28, 29).

In contrast, fresh cuts of fatty pork are not only rich sources of dietary menaquinones but also maintain healthful low Na+ concentrations together with high K+ concentrations (Table 2). Hence, fresh (unadulterated) pork, particularly fatty cuts represent excellent food choices to maintain high intakes of menaquinones while simultaneously keeping your Na+ intake low and K+ high.

Table 2. The sodium (Na+) and potassium (K+) contents of processed and fresh pork meats, along with their (Ca2+) and magnesium (Mg2+) contents.

Other Dietary Sources of Menaquinones

Our Gut Bacteria

Vitamin K1, also known as phylloquinone, is the most abundant form of vitamin K in our diet and is found in highest concentrations in leafy, green vegetables. Our bodies have the capacity to convert K1 into menaquinones, but only into MK-4 (30). All other menaquinones (MK-5 to MK-13) are synthesized by bacteria and enter the human food chain either through dietary sources (particularly fermented foods) or from resident bacteria in our guts (25, 26, 30).

Cheese Products

Recently (2018-17), accurate menaquinone measurements have been reported for fermented dairy products, particularly cheeses (31, 32). Table 3 below shows the levels of menaquinones (MKs) in a variety of cheeses (31). As you can see from this table, a number of cheeses represent highly concentrated food sources of menaquinones, consumption of which would normally be a good thing from a nutritional perspective, as dietary menaquinones may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) (3-10), osteoporosis (11-16), multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune diseases (17-23) and cancer (24).

Unfortunately, as was the case with processed pork meats (Table 2), cheeses are almost universally high in salt, as can be seen from Table 4 below. All cheeses shown maintain K+/Na+ ratios considerably below 1.00, which represent impossible values from an evolutionary perspective (28, 29).

In addition to the impossible evolutionary K+/Na+ dietary ratios present in cheeses, cheeses also maintain impossible Ca2+/Mg2+ ratios, which could have never been consumed by ancestral humans before the advent of animal husbandry and dairy consumption (29, 33). Recommended Ca2+/Mg2+ ratios are about 2.00 (34), meaning that you should ingest about twice the amount of calcium relative to magnesium you obtain from your diet. Contrast this recommendation to the average Ca2+/Mg2+ ratio of 24.04 found in cheeses (Table 4) – meaning that cheeses contain ten times more calcium than magnesium, compared to recommended Ca2+/Mg2+ ratios (34).

Table 3. The menaquinone content (μg/100 g) of various cheeses (31), NM = not measured.

Table 4. The sodium (Na+) and potassium (K+) content of various cheeses, along with their (Ca2+) and magnesium (Mg2+) content.

The Calcium-to-Magnesium Ratio

What are the health consequences of consuming enormous amounts of calcium relative to magnesium, even if you obtain the health-promoting dietary menaquinones found in fermented cheeses? And what are the adverse health consequences of consuming foods such as cheeses and processed meats loaded with salt and containing K+/Na+ ratios of less than 1.00?

High calcium intakes relative to low magnesium intakes, which frequently occur with high dairy consumption, are linked to an increased risk for cardiovascular disease (34-41) and osteoporosis (42-47). High salt diets increase your risk for hypertension, stroke, cardiovascular disease (28), autoimmune disease (48-57), gastric ulcers (58-63), all cancers (64-83), and ocular cataracts (84-92).

Let’s now take a step backward and show you the evolutionary basis for this seeming nutritional conundrum which requires us to obtain sufficient dietary menaquinones from high-fat foods but advises us against consuming high-fat salt laden cheeses and processed meats.

Where Were the Menaquinones in Our Ancient Diet?

John Speth, Ph.D., a world-renown anthropologist/archaeologist, has been my friend and scientific colleague for almost two decades. He recently published a paper that provides the nutrition and anthropology communities with a powerful insight into the evolutionary basis for menaquinones in the human diet (93).

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stated, “There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.” Indeed, in his paper (93), John has eloquently pointed out an obvious nutritional fact: Humans have been regularly consuming putrid, rotting, and fermented foods since the Middle Paleolithic era and likely earlier. This obvious fact had been apparently unknown to most anthropologists and nutritional scientists, including myself, until the publication of Dr. Speth’s paper in 2017.

In nature, the fermentation of fish, meat, fruits, and vegetables is haphazardly carried out by various bacterial species, particularly by lactic acid-producing bacteria (LAB) associated with modern food production including the following 11 bacterial genera: Carnobacterium, Enterococcus, Lactococcus, Lactobacillus, Leuconostoc, Oenococcus, Pediococcus, Streptococcus, Tetragenococcus, Vagococcus and Weisella (94-96). Many species within the LAB genera including Lactococcus lactis (subspecies. Cremoris) and Leuconostoc lactis synthesize high amounts of long-chain menaquinones (MK-8 to MK-10) (97). Other bacterial species which ferment Emmental and Jarlsberg cheese such as Propionibacterium freudenreichii produce high amounts of MK-9 (4H) (98). The bacteria (Bacillus subtilis) which ferments soybeans to make the Japanese food, natto produce unusually high concentrations of MK-7 (25).

All dietary menaquinones derived from the bacterial fermentation of various human foods, ultimately enrich our diet with long chain (MK-7 to MK-13) menaquinones, and have likely done so for millions of years (93).

Optimal dietary menaquinones intake has almost certainly been intimately linked to the consumption of fermented food since our genus, Homo’s, very beginnings more than 2 million years ago. Accordingly, these bacterially derived menaquinones have played an important evolutionary role in determining contemporary human nutritional requirements.

Summary and Practical Implications

Fatty pork cuts such as St. Louis Style Pork Ribs represent an excellent dietary choice for maximizing your intake of long-chain (MK-7 to MK-13) menaquinones intake without increasing your salt intake or compromising your nutritional K+/Na+ ratio. Consumption of long-chain dietary menaquinones reduces your risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) (3-10), osteoporosis (11-16), multiple sclerosis, and other autoimmune diseases (17-23) and cancer (24).

In contrast, three other major sources of dietary menaquinones in the Western diet (cheese, processed pork meats, and fermented soy foods (soy sauce, miso, natto) contain excessive salt and calcium which yield evolutionarily impossible dietary K+/Na+ and Ca2+/Mg2+ ratios that increase the risk for CVD (34-41), osteoporosis (42-47), autoimmune disease (48-57), gastric ulcer (58-63) all cause cancer (64-83), ocular cataract (84-92).

The evolutionary basis for menaquinones in human nutrition comes not from recently introduced high salt processed meats, cheeses or soy products (all of which may be high in menaquinones), but rather from the evolutionary selective pressures derived from our species consumption of unadulterated bacterially fermented foods containing long-chain menaquinones for millions of years.

Looking to the Future

Although all forms of vitamin K (K1, K2, and vitamin K precursors [menadione]) have therapeutic effects, the longer chain vitamin K2 (particularly MK-7 to MK-13) appear to be more effective in ameliorating chronic disease (99, 100) than vitamin K1 (phylloquinone).

An alternative dietary strategy to maximize your intake of long-chain dietary menaquinones exists without increasing salt or calcium and unbalancing your K+/Na+ or Ca2+/Mg2+ dietary ratios. This strategy has been unknowingly suggested to extend the human lifespan and has shown to increase the lifespan of insects. More on this soon.

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